kgwilson

On a per capita basis Australia is one of the worst polluting countries on the planet.

Hybrids are complex and expensive to both build and maintain. They have been around for over 20 years now but battery EVs are now a much better proposition. Toyota a sold the first Prius in 1997 and ended production in 2017. The writing was on the wall and the success of Tesla was a major contributing factor. The fact that hybrids are still being produced and sold in quite large numbers is largely due to the range anxiety that some people have, though this is disappearing with new high end EVs with considerable better range than most ICE vehicles. Hybrids tend to be the worst of both worlds. They are not as reliable as pure EVs and have a pretty terrible range of under 100km. They are also far more likely to catch fire than ICE vehicles and several hundred % more likely to catch fire than pure EVs. They are generally more expensive to repair and a lot more complex than an ICE car or BEV. With range anxiety declining they will eventually die out. In some circumstances an EV with a small ICE engine to charge the battery may be a good option. Carlos Sainz won the Dakar this year rally in one. Nothing can deliver the power to the road like an electric motor. Of course this has been known for decades with Diesel electric trains and ships.

Her uncle certainly doesn't use complex words, mainly because he doesn't know any or doesn't know what they mean. He knows Cat, Camera, TV BigMac and even one that doesn't exist Covfefe. He said "I know words, I have the best words, but there is no better word than stupid". That describes him perfectly.

Like I said if you are out of range of cellular tower it will send the message via the built in GPS. I get our SES vehicles serviced at NRMA & we have had flat batteries they have been called out for and the service has been good. They now have a battery and EV charging cable for any fool who has run out of battery but have never had to use it. Any callout is going to take time. The driver isn't normally sitting at the depot waiting for a call. Usually they are at home so they have to get organised , go to the depot and then drive for how ever many hours it takes to get to the breakdown. If it is the Nullabor highway it could take all day even if it only is from the nearest roadhouse. That is the risk you take when driving in remote areas. You need to plan for such possibilities.

If you live in the outback or where there are a lot of gravel roads it makes sense to have a spare tyre. Well over 90% of vehicles never get off major roads and some hardly ever get out of the city. Manufacturers of both ICE & EV have looked at statistics and determined providing a spare wheel is expensive and takes up valuable space so thy are no longer included. It started with space saver spares, then run flat tyres & now a repair kit. Many drivers have absolutely no idea how to change a wheel or even where the spare is. All they know is how to call NRMA. Back in the 60s Citroen put the spare under the bonnet but for most cars that isn't an option The front boot/trunk (froot/frunk) in an EV is also filled with air conditioning, coolant etc so there is nowhere to put a spare. Many cars can hold a space saver spare in/under the boot but it is an optional extra. My MG4 does not have a spare wheel & I don't care. I haven't had a puncture in the last 250,000 km of driving & if I get one there is the repair kit which consists of a pressurised can of gunk, a safety triangle and an electric tyre pump. It also has an e-Sim which knows where the car is within 5 metres and an emergency button on the ceiling console that sends a signal via the cellular system or if not in range of a tower via a GPS satellite providing a latitude/longitude grid reference to the emergency service provider to come & get me. First they try to ring me & if I am out of range they just turn up hopefully sooner rather than later. This is part of the 7 year warranty. After that there is a fee which is just the normal NRMA membership charge.

The Tesla Model Y Plaid (only sold in the USA) has 2 electric motors driving all 4 wheels and produces 1020 horsepower and 1420Nm of torque. It is the quickest car ever produced with a 0 to 100 kmh time of 1.9 seconds. It does not spin the tyres. It is quicker than a formula 1 race car, at least to the first corner where the F1 car gets around that far better..

You can call me an EVangeslist if you like. I have owned my MG4 Essence 64 since last September & have 12,000km on the clock now. I'd never buy another ICE vehicle. The public charging infrastructure is terrible. A lot of the fast chargers are hard to operate or are out of service. Only the Tesla fast chargers seem to always work, possibly because they have good service teams, I don't know. So far I have spent about $60.00 to travel 12,000km. I have been to Noosa once and Brisbane twice but other than that no more than 200km radius from home. I have a 7.4 kW wall charger and 8.5kW of solar panels & only charge when the sun is shining. If the solar is not producing much I reduce the current going to the car battery so as I don't have to import power from the grid. EVs are just a natural progression of technology. The only reason they didn't catch on in the early 1900s was battery technology. Electric motors just make sense. One moving part and almost 100% efficient compared to hundreds of moving parts and 30% efficiency of an ICE vehicle. Then there is instant torque available from 0 RPM, not to mention no noise, no emissions or vibration. They have been expensive but costs are coming down and batteries are getting cheaper. There are now several Corolla sized EVs for less than 40k and all are bigger inside. There isn't much of a 2nd hand market but that will change over time. The thing is the warranties are great and service requirements very low that not many are getting on to the used car market yet. There are quite a few funky looking inner city EVs available in the UK & Europe now & cost less than $20 grand. They are not fast, small, seat 1 or 2 only have a small battery but are perfect for driving around a city. As for the glut of EVs unsold in lots, well there is an element of truth in this but nothing like the press would have you believe. Production in China has gone ballistic and they were shipping EVs around the world before there was even dealership infrastructure & cars ended up sitting at ports waiting for that to be set up. The Teslas coming in to Australia are all Chinese built and unless Tesla has changed its strategy they are all built to order. China tried but could not go toe to toe with the legacy auto makers. Many of them built factories in China & beat the Chinese hands down. China found its mojo in EVs and battery technology and has crushed the rest of the world in manufacturing, technology and price. China is now the largest car manufacturing country on the planet as well as the largest exporter with 40% of sales EVs. They have scared the US out of its wits and there is now a 100% tariff on Chinese EVs sold in the US to try and protect the declining motor vehicle industry there. The other side of the coin is that there is a glut of ICE vehicles arriving in Australia. Most of the legacy manufacturers are advertising like crazy at present with the magic phrase "In Stock" appearing in most of the TV ads. It took 3 years to get back on track after Covid. Everything was in short supply, now there is an over supply. Nothing is as simple as it seems and the fossil fuel industry, big mining and legacy car makers have been lobbying governments to slow the move to electrification and the media with shareholdings in these industries are telling them and the gullible public what they want to hear.

Fully Charged & Everything Electric have been scorned to death by the UK right wing press for several years and every time their claims are debunked. It doesn't stop them though, probably because their major shareholders and supporters are invested in the fossil fuel & mining industries right through refining, transport and the legacy auto makers who are desperately trying to stop or delay governments emissions reductions targets by any and all means at their disposal.

I owned 2 Triumph Heralds in the early 70s, one a car & one a wagon. I never had mechanical issues with either though the bodies did rust, but then so did all cars of the era. Easiest engine to work on as well, given the entire front end hinged over the front. I was a Hang Gliding nutter at the time & we got 4 gliders on the roof & 4 in the car & it still went up lots of inclines in top gear due to the long stroke engine. Not an admission of poverty at all, rather a prudent and cost effective form of transport..

Much of Russias nuclear arsenal is very old and many doubt that their ICBMs will even work. The dilema is that who wants to test the theory?

Governments are having to set the rules as legacy vehicle manufacturers care only about profit and not the damage their fossil fuelled products are doing to the environment. Practically all legacy auto makers are actively lobbying governments to reduce or delay their emissions reduction programs to allow them to continue to generate high emissions through continued ICE vehicle production. Toyota is one of the worst in this respect. They have been producing hybrids for over 20 years but have been brought screaming and kicking in to the EV era. Their hybrids are also nowhere near as efficient as they claim. Now as they finally realise their campaign is failing they have partnered with BYD to produce their EVs. Toyota seems destined to fall from the worlds largest auto maker to an also ran like GM but unlike GM they won't get Japanese government bailouts.

Typically French with weird looks & where do you put the shopping bags. Great round town concept though & you could easily just park it bum to kerb.

I haven't been here for a while. A few comments. EV sales world wide continue to grow despite a downturn in some markets & that downturn also applies to ice cars. Toyotas sales have slumped in China despite growing in other markets but with a world wide decline. 40% of all cars now sold in China are pure electric 1000km range is now common among the top level Chinese EVs. Nio, BYD, Geely & Tesla (Chinese built) now have 1000km range options NMC & LFP batteries are proving to last much longer than even the pundits thought. CATL now provide a 1 & 1.5 million km warranty for new bus/truck batteries in China. Geelys Zeekr has a battery that can be swapped out in under 4 minutes at an automated battery swap station. A good small hatchback EV in China now costs 16-20k. Battery prices have reduced by over 40%in the last year though that is not reflected in new EV pricing mainly due to many manufacturers selling at a loss & so are now making up for lost profit. The surge in Chinese EVs around the world has started a price war especially at the +60k end of the market. So what do these comments mean for us in Australia? The future is here, it just takes a while to trickle down to backwaters like Australia where our charging infrastructure is abysmal and prices are high. There are few places that can repair EVs after a crash & many Insurance companies write them off after relatively minor damage. There is a general reluctance to change which is normal but not sensible. Smart vehicle service organisations will be upskilling to take advantage of the increase in EV numbers. Those who don't will eventually die out. A year ago EV sales were about 2-3% of all vehicle sales. That number has jumped to just over 10% now. There are a lot more hybrids (mainly Japanese) around than a year or so ago. These appeal to many but the facts show that they are not as efficient as they have been made out to be by the manufacturers, they are complex with 2 propulsion systems and expensive both to manufacture and maintain. My top of the range MG4 cost 47k but then that is less or similar to a hot ICE hatch. It has 150kw (204 hp) of power available from zero rpm & beats most ICE cars off the line, has superb handling & makes no noise except from the tyres & noise generator at 20km/h or less. It costs virtually nothing to run as I charge at home from solar energy & requires very little maintenance. The first scheduled service is at 2 years of 40,000km. Teslas do not have any maintenance schedule at all. So yes I am a convert and won't ever go back to an ICE car. The argument over whether EVs are really greener continues but this article provides some interesting findings. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-27/comparing-electric-cars-and-petrol-cars/103746132

Well no you can't. When the charger is plugged in it is locked so can't be removed until you tell the car to unlock it and charging power is stopped.

When it was produced it was funny. Yes Dave was making fun of the Australian accent, so what. It is history. Dave Alen was one of the best comedians of his day. Much of his material is still hilarious. At the time he lampooned the catholic church all the time and was roundly criticised for it from the conservative religious bigots then.

Just like other sensible countries in the world.

There are few if any subsidies for installing rooftop solar now. The market is very mature with 30% of Australian households with some solar electricity generation. However you do not pay the full price for a solar system as there are RECs (renewable energy certificates) provided by the federal government. For home owners these are called small scale technology certificates or STCs. Usually you provide authority to the supplier/installer and they apply for and receive the STC subsidy and that is deducted from the price you pay. I paid $3,500.00 for a heat pump water heater and got $990.00 from the Clean Energy Council based on the number of STCs generated. These STCs are tradeable and are purchased by industries to offset their emissions. The heat pump produces 4 times the heat energy that it consumes and all of the power comes from my rooftop solar system. When I installed the 6.5 kW solar system in February the installer applied for the STCs & that was deducted from the total cost of the system.

They haven't managed to tax the sun yet. They will tell me though that in the not too distant future I can't use the sun to move me down the road without clipping the ticket.

EVs have been driven across the Nullabor, and all around and across Australia. There are plenty of you tube clips and documented road trip data to show this. It is true that the public charging network is poor but it is improving. It doesn't bother me much as I've only done 2 long trips in 6 months. I charge the battery at home from solar power so my driving costs virtually nothing, though public chargers can be expensive. Then so is petrol & diesel & it gets dearer the further away from main centres you go. A company in Darwin is building modular charging stations that can be delivered on the back of a truck anywhere in Australia with 2 to 4 charging stations and a mini solar farm to keep the batteries full. The cost is miniscule compared to establishing a petrol station and the fuel does not have to be continually transported there. The anti EV lobby is a bit like the anti horseless carriage lobby of the late 19th century. There were no petrol stations when the first cars hit the road. Fuel had to be bought from a pharmacy. ICE car production won't disappear till the mid 30s & then ICE cars will continue to operate for 10 or so years after that. Things will change as they always have though some will have to be brought in to the future kicking and screaming. The writing is on the wall. In the last 300 years humanity has used up most of the fuel it took 4.5 billion years to amass. Now there are over 8 billion of us. Changing how we inhabit this planet is not an option if we are to survive at all. It won't bother anyone reading this as we will all be dead. People being born now are the ones who will have to fix what we have created. I hope they can.

Well just as well God doesn't exist then.

Trump may not be a complete idiot but he sure acts like one. He has a very poor vocabulary, extremely poor general knowledge, doesn't read books, eats mainly junk food and tramples on anyone to get his way. He is a bully a consummate liar (over 33,000 when in office) and a 100% Con Man. He preys on the fundamentalist christians who have been so indoctrinated by their religious masters almost from birth they are incapable of forming their own views and the rest of the below 50% intelligence level of the population who he has convinced will do things for them if elected. America and wealth distribution is a major problem when 4 people have more wealth than the bottom 40% of the population and 1% of the population own 33% of the entire wealth of the country. The gap between haves and have nots has been widening for years and Trumps original baseless claim of draining the Washington swamp of the Wealthy elite when he was the worst of them is totally laughable but all his adoring morons still believe him. The only hope is that enough of the smarter percentage of the population vote and he loses again. If this happens he will scream rigged even louder and as has already stated there could (he said will be) be a bloodbath.

I put in a 2kW system in 2013. Fully installed with all the subsidies deducted it cost me $4,500.00 In February I installed an additional 6.6kW system. I got 4 quotes from 7.5k to 4k. When making the comparison I found the cheapest system had the best panels & a good quality 5kW inverter. Though the maximum out put of the panels is 440W each (there are 15 of them) this is rarely achieved so they always install a 5kW inverter. After checking everything out I took a punt & went with the cheapest quote ($3,990.00) They had excellent reviews, the best warranties and an on line documentation process plus they were the only one to advise I needed an export control device (also included) as the maximum feed in to the grid in NSW from single phase is 5kW. The inverter has a WiFi module and I can track the system from anywhere in the world from a phone app or from a PC. I had no idea who the installer was till he rang me & I found he lives just around the corner & installed my original system in 2013. He has installed 4500 systems so far. Since the 14th of February the new system has produced 1.8 megawatts & I am charging my car solely from the solar energy I produce. My guess is I will pay the system off within 2 years just from free power for the car battery without considering that everything else used during the day is from solar energy plus the 7c/kWh feed in tariff I get for what I don't use. Peak energy production around mid-day is just under 7kW.

Well what if the Tesla had a full battery and over 500km of range? There is a new Chinese battery manufacturer with a semi solid state battery that has 720 Wh/kg, more that double the best Lithium batteries available providing 2000km of range with the same physical size and lighter weight than the best of the current lithium based battery installed in the Zeeker-1 which has 1000km of range. Also for those who doubt the huge advancements in battery technology CATL, the worlds largest battery manufacturer has just announced 2 batteries with a 1 million and a 1.5 million km warranties. These are designed for buses and large machinery but it shows how far battery storage and longevity has come in a very short time. I am sure most EVs have similar functionality but my car has an inbuilt E-SIM. If I leave the E-key in it and someone drives off with a full battery the car will stop less than 5km from home as I have it geofenced via the MG iSmart app on my phone. Pretty simple and works just like Lime Scooters and other electric scooter hire companies. I have configured the system to do this. It wouldn't work if I left the phone in the car but I never do that anyway. To release the geofence I have to get in to the phone & that needs my fingerprint or facial recognition access. Also if the E-key is stolen I can disable it and just use my phone to start and drive the car.

How about one or two of the 21 decommissioned nuclear subs in Rosyth & Devonport in the UK. A new coat of paint & some no more gaps here & there, chuck in some new plutonium rods & we're away. Plus they have the capability of firing Trident nuclear missiles as a bonus over what we're planning to spend $368 billion on. Given the cost of dismantling them they'd probably pay us to take them. It's a Win-Win all round.😬

Airconditioning uses a tiny amount of battery power, typically 2% or less. It runs from the 12 volt battery system as do all of the other ancilliary systems in an EV (computers, lighting, infotainment, etc). I leave the A/C running when at a shopping centre & return to a cool car.